Responding to WorkSafe Improvement Notices (Psychosocial Risks)
Introduction
Improvement notices related to psychosocial hazards are becoming more common in Victoria, particularly as WorkSafe sharpens its focus on how employers manage psychological health and safety. Whether triggered by an employee complaint or part of a targeted Strategic Project Intervention, these inspections focus on the effectiveness of your workplace’s systems of work.
This article explains how psychosocial notices are triggered, what constitutes a well-maintained system, and how employers can prevent enforcement by embedding psychosocial risk management into their core safety processes.
How Inspectors Approach Psychosocial Risk
WorkSafe Victoria conducts two main types of inspections:
Response Visits: Triggered by specific concerns raised by workers, including bullying, stress, or harassment.
Strategic Project Interventions: Proactive, risk-based inspections of high-risk industries or common hazard themes.
In both cases, inspectors make enquiries and assess the workplace’s systems of work — both formally documented and informally understood. They look for whether the employer is complying with their duty to identify, assess, and control psychosocial hazards under the OHS Act. While inspectors do not assess employers against ISO 45001, its framework offers valuable guidance for developing and maintaining effective safety management systems — even for organisations that are not formally certified.
Improvement notices are issued for:
Absence of systems: No documented risk management procedure, policy, or process for psychosocial hazards.
Inadequate systems: Generic procedures, or tools that don’t reflect actual risks in the workplace.
Unmaintained systems: Where documentation exists, but it’s not implemented, followed, regularly reviewed, or supported by timely responses to identified hazards, risks, or incidents.
What ‘Maintained’ Really Means
A compliant system isn’t just written — it must be enacted. This includes:
Providing training and information to employees and managers (noting that under the OHS Act, this duty falls under section 21(2)(e))
Applying procedures in real situations, such as responding to reported concerns
Ensuring investigations are fair, complete, and documented
Regularly reviewing controls and consulting with workers
For example, a workplace may have a psychosocial policy and investigation procedure, but if a bullying complaint is mishandled — witnesses not contacted, evidence overlooked, or the process lacks procedural fairness — the system is considered unmaintained. A well-functioning system would reasonably be expected to ensure such complaints trigger thorough and procedurally fair responses, including the identification and examination of any underlying work-related factors contributing to the concern. If no action is taken to examine potential work-related causes (like excessive workloads or poor role clarity), the risk remains unmanaged.
The Problem with ‘Unsubstantiated’ Outcomes
In many cases, behavioural complaints are closed as “unsubstantiated” due to a lack of direct evidence or witnesses. This outcome, however, does not mean the issue is resolved — and it does not remove the employer’s obligation to examine whether work-related factors played a role. For example, concerns about bullying may arise from unclear reporting lines, conflicting job expectations, or unrealistic management demands. When these structural contributors are not investigated following an unsubstantiated complaint, inspectors may view the system as reactive and inadequate. This systemic oversight — where no analysis of contributing factors is undertaken — is a common basis for psychosocial improvement notices. Even if allegations can’t be proven, the underlying risks may still exist and must be managed. It’s worth considering — would simply reminding staff of the organisation’s code of conduct or reissuing policies through training be an adequate outcome following such a complaint? Would this genuinely prevent recurrence, or would it be wishful thinking in the absence of a thorough investigation into underlying issues? Inspectors often expect more than policy reminders; they expect a workplace to interrogate the contributing factors and actively manage the risks those complaints may reveal.
Other Common Compliance Gaps
No documented psychosocial hazard or risk assessment
No training for managers in early intervention or conflict resolution
No system for consulting employees or HSRs on mental health
Policies exist but are unknown, unused, or misapplied
How to Respond to a Notice
If you've received a psychosocial improvement notice (or any notice), begin by interpreting the notice through the lens of REC: Risk–Exposure–Consequence. Ask:
Risk: What psychosocial hazard or system failure has been identified?
Exposure: Who is affected, and how widespread or repeated is the exposure?
Consequence: What harm could or has resulted if this issue remains unaddressed?
This framework helps ensure your response focuses not just on paperwork, but on actual risk reduction. It also supports compliance with your general duty to eliminate or reduce risks to health and safety so far as is reasonably practicable (SFAIRP) — a key principle under the OHS Act when determining what actions are appropriate in response to identified issues.
Understand the issue — What part of your system is missing or not maintained?
Conduct a focused review — Examine your hazard identification, reporting, investigation, and control processes.
Consult your team — Engage staff and HSRs to validate findings and explore solutions.
Take proportionate, documented action — Reissue guidance, deliver training, review past incidents, and improve processes.
Apply for an extension through the Internal Review Unit (IRU) if more time is needed — show good faith and progress. Alternatively, following a structured review using the REC framework and taking proportionate action, you may conclude that all reasonably practicable steps have been taken (SFAIRP). In such cases, this reasoning can form the basis for challenging the notice through the IRU.
Prevention Means Systems Thinking
Improvement notices can be issued in response to an isolated incident — particularly where uncontrolled risks are present. However, more often, they reflect repeated or unaddressed signs of neglect. When similar issues emerge across multiple concerns or inspections, or where employers fail to act despite prior indicators, inspectors may determine that enforcement beyond an improvement notice is required. In such instances, the matter can be referred to WorkSafe’s investigations team — where a more comprehensive investigation may occur, potentially leading to prosecution.
Learning from others’ mistakes can be a powerful and cost-effective strategy. Reviewing past prosecutions — whether psychosocial or physical in nature — offers valuable insights into the kinds of system failures that led to serious consequences. These case studies can help identify blind spots in your own organisation and prompt necessary improvements before enforcement escalates.
WorkSafe inspectors assess not just whether an incident occurred, but whether the organisation has taken reasonable steps to understand and address the systemic contributors. Preventing notices means thinking systemically — reviewing how your workplace designs and maintains processes that support clarity, fairness, supervision, workload management, employee voice, and respectful conduct. A reactive approach focused only on resolving individual complaints is often insufficient. Instead, systems should enable ongoing risk identification, action, and review — aligned with the general duties under the OHS Act and the expectations of reasonably practicable action.
Final Thought
Psychosocial hazards are safety issues — not just HR issues — and they require deliberate, system-wide attention. Effective management of these risks requires a collaborative, multi-functional approach that engages not only HR and OHS, but also operations, sales, customer support, IT, finance, digital teams, and even contractors. This applies across diverse sectors — including but not limited to retail, healthcare (including NDIS), manufacturing, warehousing, logistics, and other high-risk or service-oriented industries. In all of these settings, psychosocial risks may arise from a range of sources depending on the nature of the work, workforce dynamics, and organisational culture.
Systems must not only exist on paper, but be maintained in practice. Being proactive — with clear procedures, trained leaders, and regular reviews — shows due diligence. It also builds trust, restores hope, and contributes to a safer, healthier workplace culture. When systems are unresponsive or inconsistently applied, employees may lose faith in the process and the organisation itself. Addressing psychosocial hazards with transparency and commitment helps maintain morale and ensures that staff feel heard and supported.
Don’t overlook the role of digital communication and social media. These are emerging sources of psychosocial risk — particularly given the increasing organisational and individual presence online. These channels can influence workplace interactions, reputations, and psychological safety, and should be considered within a modern psychosocial risk management approach.
Reference
WorkSafe Victoria (2021). Preventing and managing work-related stress: A guide for employers. https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/resources/preventing-and-managing-work-related-stress-guide-employers-pdf-version
